I fell down on my run today in the dark. The last time I fell down on a run was 2018 in front of Dave and Busters. I was peering into the D&B window where words read “Eat, Drink, Play, Watch”. That was concise marketing and I failed to realize the curb raised up an inch and wiped out. As I plummeted to my demise, I clenched my fist so the only house key I had didn’t fall into the Delaware. There was a bystander who witnessed the fall but I quickly acted like nothing happened and finished the run with a bloody knee. Today was similarly different.

I don’t like running in the cold. In college, I got frost bite on my right foot and now cold temperatures make my foot numb. My friend’s dad started calling me Tommy Two Toes. I have all my toes in case you were wondering but this was a clever nickname if you know Jenny 867-5309.

With gyms closed, I bundle up and go for runs in 30 degree weather in the dark to get exercise. Today I had a barrage of thoughts that distracted me and I tripped on uneven sidewalk and tumbled down. What caused this occurrence? Here goes.

I had finished watching Weeds on 1.25x speed and couldn’t get over Nancy and Andy’s final scenes. Most people won’t know what I’m referring to so I’ll summarize in 3 sentences. Nancy married Andy’s brother who died of a heart attack. Andy loved Nancy and she didn’t love him back. When Nancy was ready for Andy, he had moved on because she was bad for him. Weeds was hardly a great series, but they time traveled about 15 years during its 8 seasons which is unusual. So I was intrigued by the human nature of Nancy coming back to Andy giving him anything he wanted to come back and he kept denying her after he had made his mind up.

So, during the run I was thinking about how there were portions of myself in both Nancy and Andy’s character. Nancy was the CEO of her business and Andy kept wondering what the point of life was and where he fit in. He went to Rabbinical school to avoid a military call up and he didn’t seem very religious. This transferred my mind into the 3 books I had just read by Yuval Noah Harari how religion is mainly storied bullshit. So now I’m pinballing all these thoughts in the dark and before I knew it I was on the ground with a clenched fist holding my key and a bloody knee. No one was there to see this one.

Now, and I’ll bring some Harari into this, assuming I don’t have free will, what caused me to fall? The neurons in my brain were firing about all of this Weeds bullshit and when my foot hit a part of the pavement it did not expect my ankle immediately rolled and I fell to the ground. Did I do this? Was my brain controlling this tumble? Am I the vessel of my mind? Was I supposed to fall right there to write this post? My brain is only reacting to the environment that has been set up for it. This started me down a path of wondering if the Twenty One Pilots album Vessel spoke to some of these points and I did some digging in Ode to Sleep lyrics. It wasn’t exactly. I’m also sure I’m misconstruing Harari but I’ll have many more posts in the future about his books. I thought they were very mind opening. Safe running to all out there!